


Voodoo Cowboy (Bid My Blood redux)

by larkingstock



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Nothing explicit yet, Richie Whump, Xibalba shenanigans, don't trust me with WIPs, let's face it he's kinda just a really really really really ridiculously goodlooking chewtoy, or for a while, slow updating, tags to be added as we go, younger brother!Richie (if that matters)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-10 15:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17428844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock
Summary: Richie in Xibalba, savin' Kate.Or, that's the general idea, anyway.





	1. In Search of Heaven Above (To Call His Own)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bid My Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16244540) by [larkingstock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock). 



> When I mentioned in Bid My Blood that I wanted morrrrrre of Kate and Richie's time in Xibalba? I wasn't kidding. (Besides, redoing-and-expanding-liek-whoa seems pretty in the spirit of this show.) This will probably be very slow and I'm working it out as I go, and it might not work out *exactly* the same way, but still obviously he's gonna get to her at some point ;)
> 
> Title of the fic and this chapter from The Cat Empire's [Voodoo Cowboy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8S00tZpS5M).

Kate is floating. Suspended, girlish and pristine in her bikini, ruby-brilliant hair bleeding out and out and out into clear sunlit aqua, and Richie stumbles a step back, heart ripping open in horror.

"What--"

In the course of schlepping through this bullshit Xibalban hellscape under its burning eclipse, Richie has devoted a lot of mental runtime to Carlos's spirit-guide riddles, trying to anticipate how he's going to have to save Seth this time, prepare for what tortures or trials the Realm of Shadows might have in store for the Gecko brothers. So looks like the joke's on him, trying to outthink Hell, because not once, not in his darkest, most awful ideas, could Richie imagine such a torment as this.

As if the sound of his voice nudged something loose, her eyes slowly lift open within their wings of shadow. Slowly focus on his, slowly _eyesfindeyes_ show recognition. Surprise, and dawning, overwhelming _joy_ to see him, long, _longing_ moments and his mouth parts even as hers does, his name in her breath, in all her simple devastating gladness.

" _Richie_..."

He nearly falls to his knees with the pain of it, heartbeat pounding so hard it's gonna tear his whole chest apart from the inside out but she's already drifting, back away from him, closing eyes, losing touch.

"No!" He throws himself towards her, reaching for her, and slams so hard into a wall of nothing he nearly knocks himself out. "Kate! _Kate_! No, I--wait, wait, _wait_ \--"

Notwithstanding Santanico messing with his head--or Seth being really fucking annoying--Richie prides himself on his vast capacity for keeping his cool, whatever heinous or unexpected shit might be hitting the fan. This is...not one of those times. He spins to Zolo, who's been standing at his side just impassively watching all this go down, and seizes the chain still manacled to his wrist, whipping it around the dude's neck for lack of anything better to grab in order to drag him close and scream in his face, "-- _WHAT THE FUCK_?"

The tracker's head turns as much as his metal noose and Richie's deathgrip will allow, following Richie's finger pointing at Kate buoyed in her halo of cool clean water that isn't there, glistening golden in a wasteland of corroding sand and scorching bloodshadow, and then back to Richie's rage inches away from his face, without so much as a blink of expression.

"Brother," he says flatly, as though that explained everything. As though _Richie_ is the one who's making not a fucking lick of goddamn sense.

Richie's got enough facial expression going on for the both of them, though, and after another few moments of this Zolo holds his eyes and, with just an infinitesimal increase of softness, insists, " _Brother_."

Richie lets him go. There's no arguing with the certainty of a Xibalban warrior-tracker demon on home turf. Particularly not one who could teach the Spartans a thing or two about laconic, and who has now started pitying him.

The pity is the boot in the ass Richie needs to pull himself together--and Zolo's insistence is the key he needs to start putting everything _else_ together. This is what he _does_ , goddamnit _not some dipshit triggerman who screams at bank tellers_ when things don't make sense this is _what he does_ , he _figures it out_. He worked out how to summon the big bastard back to him in the first place, his own Omar Sharif to bring him through the shifting pitfalls of the Xibalban desert and hunt down _tu hermanito_. _One job and one job only_ he's gotta save his "little" brother, and it's long since anyone knew or cared which of them _Irish twins_ ( _she couldn't stand the sight of you she got one look at you boys and she ran_...) born a year apart actually came out first (eternally one step ahead of him) because Seth has always been runty and Carlos has always been a dick and Zolo has brought him...to _Kate_.

" _Hermanito_..." he mutters, stepping up again to the invisible barrier that's enfolding Kate's living form inside itself.

And it _is_ Kate in there, real, and _alive_ , it's not any freaky mind trick Xibalba's playing on him. Richie _knows_ it. He doesn't know how--Amaru was convinced Kate was dead, the red-soaked vision of Kate's wrists draining out all too real, jammed into his brain along with that queen bitch when she took him over, and while Richie'd absorbed enough of how the Jaguar Warriors track their prey, the very dimension itself is knotting up around Kate _proverbs315_ turning time and space into taffy folds _she is more precious than jewels_ and way too distorted _and nothing you desire_ to verify any read on her heartbeat _can compare with her_ but none of that matters. It's _Kate_.

And yet...

He brings his hands up, concentrating, there's...a ripple, an echo...and the slightest tensing of Zolo beside him. He pauses, his palms an inch from the boundary, and looks back, eyebrow raised.

"Trap," the One-Word Wonder deadpans helpfully, and between him and Carlos's impresario gabbling to go on _inside something you would understand to be a vault_ Richie's doing great, thanks.

"Yeah. No shit." _To keep a showgirl in a cage_. Richie's eyes widen. "... _Shit_."

He is a scientist. He is a master tactician. He is a lock artist, a prodigy, he is razor-sharp and pure of mind. He beat his sadistic father's mindgames and saved his big brother, he beat the Lords of the Night's own Labyrinth and set free Santanico Pandemonium...but this right here, this is literally Hell Itself locking down Its own Goddess Queen's most dangerous enemy. The one person in Richie's entire twisted up monster-freak ( _lonely_ ) life he has ever been able to make a true, human connection with, instant, and effortless, and _Kate_.

"Oh, Jesus," he whispers.

Her tiny golden cross winks uselessly, catching sunlight from another realm, another time. A time when they were strangers, before he and his brother took her, and her family, and served them up to monsters and darkness and death.

_Now you've gone and ruined the whole thing_.

He doesn't even realize he's reaching for her until his palms hit the _my name is Kate don't let her die Scott she's not even supposed to be here I want you to feel what I'm feeling this whole trip is totally schizo delicious agua fresca apply yourself then it's gonna be a very short transfusion I'll be having Katey-kakes for dessert could've killed us goddamn whackjob your goddamn rice milk waiting is a fine skill for him to acquire you selfish bastard find the in-between spaces dancing with some Jesus freak Kate don't do this you selfish prick crazy about you got you killing and you haven't stopped since I have homecoming and friends and I have a life he starts timing his work to their rhythm you made me cut her eyes out I keep this dial at zero and it's not at zero dying in the arms of a beautiful woman all of you I need your mind I need your heart your soul I didn't kill Kate under the surface it's really beautiful Carlos did maybe this is where you're really supposed to be she made me watch you have to let these people go it's a sunny day it doesn't matter I'm coming for you not so fast lover-boy Seth you need to stop trying to protect me set me free Richard I HOPE YOU BURN IN HELL bad blood bad seed STICK HER_

_what flavor are you Kyle_

Richie's on the ground, curled around high whimpering animal pain noises, getting the shit kicked out of him and Seth's not here, this time, to pull him up off the shitty liquor store floor going up in flames, to run off the demons Richie always knew were coming for him, for everything he's done...

"Told ya," says Earl, standing over him and shooting first and Richie's rolling, already rolling so it misses his heart by a breath. Zolo smacks the revolver out of the rinche's hand and Richie's on him, sinking his fangs in, the dead man's laugh and blood and throat filling Richie's mouth, filling his gullet, and he drains the leathery old bastard to a husk.

"Ugh," he spits, quikstop beef jerky.

But it's been a Hell of a day and Richie's running on fumes and sheer willpower at this point, so even the filmy dregs of life hanging around waiting for him in the blood gives him some much needed oomph. The gaping bullethole goes first, closing up front to back, he can feel it running through him back along the same path Ranger Gonzalez's shot had taken to kill him, back to front, and Richie had never, ever begged. He never _asked_. He never chose, never said yes to the monster's venom, hadn't even _wanted_ it but he hadn't had the courage to refuse, either, not like...not like Kate.

He closes his eyes for a few seconds, just doesn't look at anything at all. The last busted bones of his knife hand are knitting, his veins cranked up with a little more ropey, pigheaded strength to stay on his feet against the onslaught, every fucking thing coming from all angles like they always do to take him down. He rights his glasses and smacks the desert dust from his suit, watching Earl McGraw's soul evaporate from his body, laugh still rasping in the air, and he finds in himself maybe a scrap of hope he's sent the stubborn asshole to a better place. He smooths down his tie and rolls the cricks out of his shoulders. "I'll tell your daughter you said hi."

_From sunup to sundown_ , echoes in Richie's head, flipping him off right back. _It fleets_.

Richie lifts his eyes to the eclipse, the moon locked into the sun around it, chewing a raw black gaping wound into clawing talons of light, and this is a job on a clock--no matter how screwy that clock might be-- _or it all goes down the drain_. He swallows, looks at the water glimmering like living diamond braceleting Kate's body, holding her afloat.

Time to quit fucking around.

"You're on lookout," he orders Zolo, because he's gotta focus and the last thing he needs is to get jumped by more vengeful spirits, fuck knows he's sent enough of them here. "Any more unfriendlies come at us, kill them."

Zolo glances down at the puny six-shooter he's retrieved, that's found its way here from the guest of honor spot in Benny's World of Liquor where it'd been the first to drill a hole in Richie's hand, and just shrugs and nods. But Richie couldn't agree more, it's not much to work with around here, but he's _dressed_ to work, the very suit he was wearing that day--and when he pats down his pockets it comes back to him that it was a suit sans knife, thanks to his ever-helpful know-better brother. He should've known. What self-respecting Hell dimension would let him in the door wearing one of Its own blades?

So it's just him and his left hand, and it really is too bad Seth isn't here because he'd get hours of jokes out of that one. It's definitely not because Richie would rather stake himself than admit he's not exactly 100% sure he can do this without his brother--and if he can't, if he _fails_...

"Richard," he tells himself grimly, and tells himself it helps, "get your balls on," braces himself, opens his Eye, and gets to casing the joint.

...Holy _shit_.

"Oh Jesus," he breathes, and doesn't even care he's repeating himself. His mouth slowly drops open, and he backs up, trying to take it in, and with every step there's _more_ , grinding in and in on itself, interlocking mazes in unending combinations, and the thing is--"Oh, fucking _Christ_ ," shivers going down his spine--it's actually...really...

... _beautiful_.

Beautiful, the way a tsunami is beautiful. The way a black hole or a broken heart is beautiful. Poised square to consume anything in its path. Which is Richie.

Because this is nothing less than sheer, implacable, _cosmic_ geometry on an unimaginable scale, dancing and fighting, the way Cubists had tried to capture in their paintings, and it's all there. The shape of the whole fucking thing he's been catching wormhole flashes of the whole fucking time. He can see it, lines of blood and souls, roads and rituals and realms reaching out in all directions, fractal patterns of all the strands dragging together, crossing, flipping, upside and downside, shadows and echoes and reflections repeating throughout time. It's the _Popol Vuh_ , Amaru consumed in the bodies and locked in the bloodwell of the Culebra Lords, Santanico in their temple, Carlos journeying across oceans and damnation for his treasure, his queen, his goddess, prophet and showman, the most treacherous fuck of a true believer. It's Pastor Jacob and Jenny Fuller just reeking of proud piety, vacationing in Mexico, _their moment_ (their Shangri-La, snowballs and chintzy snowglobes, everything he ever wanted), the moment devils caught their scent _piouspride_ and never let them go.

It's Carlos, intercepting Kate's cherry-lime knight she called on to ride to her innocent rescue, sending their sacrificial distraction, _so pure_ , spinning into the wild careening of los hermanos Geckos, into Richie bloodily called to hunt down the captive girl needing him to find her, save her--it's Carlos able to intercept Richie even under here in Xibalba, spurring him on to a rescue he didn't even understand. It's the events spiraling out of Santanico's control at the Twister and the pieces never fitting right since, Richie couldn't _belong_ the way he was supposed to and he couldn't make it _fit_ no matter what he did and he couldn't work it out, he didn't have the answers and that deep down whisper, what a horrorshow of a man he must be, there's something so wrong with him he couldn't even make it with the monsters. It's Uncle Eddie impaled through the chest on the floor, after all his plans it's Malvado snapping Santanico out of Richie's head and promising his heart's desire, _keys to the kingdom_ , and handing him Kate (winning the keys to that goddamn RV with Xibalba's blade returned to his hand where it belonged, _she's always lookin for the family toolbox_ , running right out in traffic to do whatever it takes to save her monster brother), driving her blindly to her death (just like her drunk and busted staked-in-the-heart daddy) because in the end the only thing Richie had ever had to give anyone who was worth a damn was being shot in the back like a punk.

And it's a rinche's bullet and the Peacekeeper's blade and Kate's own soul ripping open his palm, invoking his Eye. Kate's own hands fitting into his, held out with the glad, free gift of her name to him before she knew to fear (I don't want you to leave, Kate, _Kate_ ), taking hold, blood in one hand and prayer in the other. _The two most important gifts a God can bequeath on a man: the ability to see, and the ability to take action._

He doesn't know if Santanico and Carlos just tapped in and hijacked the vibe, or if they were the warm-up act, honing him for this, tests and trials, like his father before them. Or if there's even any difference, the slider of time shuttling back and forth through space, snatching up all the threads, weaving the web into itself. (Like Seth, always taking hold so hard, gathering them up, bringing them all together.) Over and over and over and over again, the way the galaxies collide, up there in the Great Map of the Heavens. (Like _family_.) Tearing right through each other and out again, scattering and devouring and bleeding out, slingshotting right around and coming back for more. Caught in each other's gravity, violence and need smashing together again and again, faster and tighter until merging whole, finally, into one.

Which is Kate. Set here the very crown of it all, shining, banked in a safe to end all safes...and Richie's the best boxman the west could throw at it so they're all fucked, because just two seconds of putting his hands to the border nearly blew his brains out and he hasn't got the _first clue_ how to crack it and get her out.

"Hey hey, _whoa_ there amigo--!"

The single gunshot cracks out and Richie turns to see Tanner go sprawling in the dirt, bullseyed through the forehead. He goes over, joining Zolo silently contemplating the body. "Yeah," Richie agrees, on balance. "Good call."

Zolo crouches and makes short work of stripping the sword from the Indiana Jones wannabe, because every warrior knows winning a war means waging it with any tool you can get your hands on and oh, no _fucking_ way. No. NO.

There's a muffled pneumatic _thunk_ of activation as Tanner's _unexpected_ bursts his fly apart and Zolo jumps back, sword and belt in hand, regaining his feet with all the heavy nonchalance of a junglecat pretending he wasn't just startled like a housekitty. Then he tilts his head, taking in the steel-forged cock-and-balls artillery arrangement for a few moments, and ends with the deeply-considered verdict of, " _Fuck_ no."

Which only goes to show, you've gotta draw the line _somewhere_.

Except it doesn't matter. That bottomless pit in Richie's guts, that _hunger_ plaguing him for months is already recognizing prey and it all snaps into focus. That suppressed dread clawing at him, _something coming_ , and the bottomless greed for the next thing, sucking down that bit of knowledge, ability, _anything_ that might fit, might let him arm himself against it.

It started after Kate died and he thought, ignored, _denied_ , that was why. Why he consumed all those men with Shadow in their hearts, men who preyed on the weak, men who destroyed their own families, their women, the very people they should have put their arms around and given their strength, their _lives_ , to protect and so he took their strengths and their lives from them in payment. Why he sought and scourged out men who he could tell himself were _worse than him_ , tell himself that was why their dark souls draining through him were the only company he could bear to live with inside his own. Why their skills and experience took the edge off his fear, briefly, soaking in depravity and storing it up, a bulwark against the day he'd need it, in order that _by any means necessary_ he could to be big and bad enough to take on the _worst_ , not caring what kind of monster that made him ( _because without Kate_ \--).

It started, he now knows, after Amaru came, and as his fangs sink into Tanner's neck _all those women_ the sick fuck carved up, souls to the slaughter in service of Santanico, come gushing up, unleashing the potency, drawn in lines of blood and _necessary casualties_ funneling him and his brother--and _Kate_ \--down south of the border into the jaws of the Twister, funneling through that final bank teller's fear and her life and her viscera sacrificed on Richie's hands and into his throat, _rivers_ of it, amassed like a personal tanker truck, killed and killers drowning him in the guilt and sin he knew he deserved.

He takes it, all of it, drinking from a fire hose, as long and as much as he can stand until he _can't_ , anymore, and he rips off that fucking codpiece and rams it through Tanner's chest, so fucking juiced the barrel caves right through the whole rough-tough machine of breastbone-muscle-heart-spine and crunches into the accursed ground.

There are very, very few people who actually become a _better_ person by receiving the culebra's bite, but that craven eunuch cindering up beside him might have managed it. As Richie slumps back on his ass and gags, miserably hugging his knees, tears streaming unheeded down his face, he thinks he sees shadows in the form of women moving in the earth below. Unforgiving hands and glints of dead eyes with an eternity for payback, reaching up clawing in Tanner's guts, dragging his soul down, and if Richie did in fact hear, very faintly, " _Ladies_..." he _does not even want to know_.

He feels nearly numb and yet he can't stop crying with it, grief and horror beyond anything he could ever understand or _arm_ himself with. No more than Tanner could ever have hoped to access all that captive power he'd held, _because it belonged to Richie_. He coughs wetly and gags again, wanting to deny it, wanting it out of him more than he could ever have imagined but it's too late. It was bequeathed on him and something like that, something that vile, makes him beyond monstrous. The kind of bad-seed abomination from the start, that just by being born into existence can make its own mother flee in revulsion, can even make her abandon her other, innocent baby son to the violent hatred of their father and never look back.

He'd been so _desperate_ to prove he was as good as Seth, didn't need him, hadn't been the one to cost him everything he ever should have had, _so fucking desperate_ to show he was anything more than _this_ and it all seems so pitiful, now. So revolting, telling himself he'll rule, do it right, do it _better_ , trading in all the insignificant little people and using them up and he will make them see the greatness of Richard Gecko...and so very _blind_ , ignoring how he was destroying his own family, and he can make no claim to any woman and right now he can't even think that without nearly throwing up--but the very people that he _loves_.

_COME GET ME NOW!!_

Richie rolls on his hands and knees even as he keens, helplessly, into the ground. Forces his arms to push him up against his spine bowing him down, _come on Richard get UP_ , panting and a mess, those tears still coming, splashing to the thirsting dust. He shoves, and _shoves_ , the cry coming out of him becoming wordless determination until he is on his feet once more, chest heaving in calm despair.

He's never been a fan of asking questions, revealing vulnerability, ignorance. _Need_. He likes statements, and even more, he likes being the guy with the answers. And now, with the well of all Tanner's obsessive research sloshing around inside him, he is all that and more.

In fact, he's almost certain he's finally gained enough knowledge and power ( _see, and take action_ ) that he could make his way back to the Gate, right now, and force the glyphs to give up every one of their secrets. He could close it. Sacrifice Kate, leave her trapped here, just a distraction on her altar of light shining as long as the shadow of the moon lasts, and emerge into the world, reborn. Immortal among mortals, The King among men, the hero who conquered Hell and Its Queen God.

Richard could save the whole freaking world and it would almost be easy.

He feels Zolo look at him, his mouth turning down--more down--which from him is you-poor-dumb-bastard pity tenfold and Richie doesn't care. He's almost certain he already knows the answer, because this is Hell coming to collect on his debts, and the Labyrinth kissing against Xibalba at the edges was only a shadow of the Shadow Realm, casting deep into the Realm of Light. All its rambling maze of fear and mindgames and trials were just a pieced-together likeness of the real thing, what's waiting for him between him and Kate and Richie's all she's got, and he asks the question anyway.

"What's going to happen to me?"

Zolo's eyes are dark, and sad, and very sure. "Judgment."

And Richie can only fail.

Richie nods. This day is long past due, and there is no question how that payment goes, not in any world he knows. No wonder Earl was laughing his dead ass off.

He moves steadily, now, every action smooth and deliberate, his fingers knowing discipline down to their very cells, their inescapable Ray Gecko DNA. He begins by lifting them up and pulling the knot of his skinny tie undone, off. He'd ditched it by the first time he ever saw her from the other side of the Dew Drop Inn pool fence, that day like this, big bad bank robber armed and dangerous coming for nice sweet defenseless girl cloaked in mouthwatering red, lost and afraid, with his shirt still buttoned up to the very prim top like he had it under control, like he had _anything_ under control.

He polishes his lenses carefully, wipes his mouth clean and then tosses the tie aside, and discovers he still has cigs but no pearl-grip pistol to reach for down his pants and as he lights up and inhales deep he can only be grateful for those small mercies.

Pure, concentrated _see-and-act_ is sizzling through every last molecule of him, and as he takes another drag for the hell of it he _can_. It's right there in front of him, that tiny tiny chink in the impenetrable that should be set at zero but it's not at zero, not _quite_ , because Zolo was right. _Brother_ , some part of his brother, _is_ in there. Already got in, to her, hero switch jammed on, already saving her. Seth's blood pulsing though Kate's heart, Seth's love, every bit as much as Richie, from the first, Seth putting his arm around her, hiding her right against his chest _safest place I could think of_ and shielding his whole small body between her and danger before his _bigger brother_ could even get there to help. Always just dropping right in so smooth and easy with his people skills, anytime he wants, to just _connect_ , giving anything he had left to save her, conduit of the soul straight to the heartbeat and holding on, so hard, with blood and _prayer_. Jesus, Seth had given himself to her and _prayed_ , arm bleeding and eyes wide open, finding religion on the floor of a goddamned church--and not even all the wheels of Hell twisting Itself in Gordian knots can lock out the sacred bond brothers bear between them, not completely.

Richie straightens. It's Seth with Kate, _his_ KateandSeth, caught in a dead-end trap with danger bearing down, waiting for him, needing him to get out safe, and he flicks the smoking butt away and shoots out a little, "Hey," just in case, couldn't hurt, "it's me," and kicks the fucking door in.


	2. If You Want (There Ain't Nothin)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Rihanna's [Desperado](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7awq_VEdZzk).

_Kate_ \--

\--Richie comes through the barrier like being shot in the head, and as he wakes up bellowing through the splitting headache, the first thing he knows, is _Kate_. Before he can even see or hear--fuck, Jesus, outside it had just been a whisper of Seth, but he's inside and it's, god, _all Kate_ , her heartbeat singing all around him, and he'd never needed eyes or ears to _see_ , right to the heart of her, just holding it right out for anyone who ever cared to look, and love. Lifting his target and keeping his eyes with _such trust_ , shining like a beacon, everything she needs from him, _saturating_ him he can practically _taste_ her--

"Mm, something's up," she purrs appreciatively in his ear and he spins quick as a snake, snatching her wrists, her hands from over his eyes, the knowing sway of her hips all grown up, soft creamy skin, wrapped like a gift in smoky silky lingerie cupping all the places on her a man's hands should go.

He doesn't bother to contain his fury. "Who are you?"

She grins, unfazed, _Kate's_ grin, bright and achingly perfect. "I'm everything you want," and she undulates forward, pressing up tiptoes to come within a whisper of his very, very hard cock, and he backs up so fast he nearly falls right over the bed that hits the back of his knees.

"I don't want jailbait in underwear," he grits out even as his ass hits the covers and she follows, panties at eye level and feet in black jungle soil and sliding her knee in gentle testing against his groin.

"Oh, really?" That grin is still playing on her lips and he shoves himself back further, looking away. Wishing it was just some pervy echo of Tanner knocking around in the blood, that he could've been self-righteously on his feet with the rest of Kate's family, Seth included, upon her underage scorn at being hit on by Professor Sex Machine--instead of sitting back in his (smug, so smug) field research of his own, of poolside cigarettes and private-show kisses that _she'd_ come onto _him_ for. "Besides," she teases, "haven't you already _taken_ the bait?"

He can only stare at her for a few moments, humbled and furious at just how many ways that's true. "I don't have time for this. _Where's Kate_?"

"Oh, you've got nothing but time, Mr Gecko." She gestures in not any direction that exists, or makes sense. "In here, you have eternity."

He follows it and Sees, outside, Zolo standing frozen guard under a frozen sky and its frozen eclipse, and now that he's looking around at something other than her, he sees the motel room around them, the motel bed, the tv...and Kate. Head to toe, not a detail out of place, not even his Sight can tell the difference.

He glares. "Take her off."

Monica smiles, customer-service perfect, and Richie nods. "Gotta say, I was expecting more leg-breaking for this portion of the evening's entertainment, less..." He eyes the change in her lingerie, high-priced call girl that cost her a fortune at Frederick's, a flash of it in vision and then inescapable as she stalked vengefully through the feverdream of his human death, the agony of his blade in her grip to cut open eyes and hands into the same dying shape as hers. Maybe he's gotten ahead of himself. "...pay-to-play MILF," he finishes lamely.

She lifts an eyebrow. "Forgetting all your studies already, you naughty boy?" Her fingertips flutter, stippling dots mapped down the air on either side of him seated at the pinnacle of tribute, a bloody sacrifice at every point. "It's a safezone," she intones, in eerily good mean-girl imitation of the professor, of all his flunky _life's work_ for Richie to just stroll through at the climax and claim due, paying as little attention as any lord--any _ajaw_ \--ever living off his subjects. Monica flips her hair back and shrugs. " _Sacred ground_. In here, it's all what you want. It's all you. You're in control, now, baby."

"Then I _want Kate_ ," he growls and she smiles brightly and before she can transform even a flicker more he has his hand around Monica's neck, bearing her to the bed with every ounce he's got. "Go there again and I will tear you apart," he snarls, " _again_."

She wriggles up against his body, against that hard-on that fucking will not quit. "Then go ahead, baby. Whatever you want. The customer is always right." Even half choked she's still nailing the role, service-with-a-smile, as warmly accepting as the perfect hostess, mother, wife, hooker, endlessly understanding, endlessly comforting, endlessly giving, inviting a man to come in, honey, out of the cruel lonesome cold, lay down his cares and make himself at home. He lets her go and rolls away, blindly finding the edge of the bed again, head in hands, but she doesn't let up. "Isn't that why you took me?"

She's crouched up right at Richie's shoulder and he wants to put his hands over his ears like a little kid. He never did it then and he doesn't do it now, forcing himself to look at her, fighting down the bile and dread. "What?"

"To be whatever you want me to be," she says reasonably. "The combination at the vault, the key unlocking the back door, a shield in front of the cops. A mommy to mend all your boo-boos--" He closes his eyes and flinches to feel her brush a lock of hair back from his face. "You got inside my belly, drank my milk--"

Okay granted he was in and out of a lot of states of consciousness that day but he would _remember that_. " _What_?"

The smiling mask she's been wearing for him the whole time quirks suddenly into something real, something that's _hers_ , Monica's gently sly sense of humor. "That was _my_ horchata, abuelito."

He closes his eyes again with a groan, and hears her chuckle. They sit there, he and this woman whom he'd taken hostage, used up and desecrated and, apparently, bound to himself in bloody arcane ritual. Yes, it had been Santanico in his head, controlling him, his choices, his blood-drenched hands--but he's the one who chose to let her in there, in the first place. He'd let her take his mind, his hands for her own. This is on him.

His hand clenches, and he almost can't believe it when a moment later he feels Monica's hand settle on his fist. He looks down. Their hands are clean and whole, just like her body, with only the backdrop of his own bloody fingerpainting on his white shirt still declaring the truth. And yet--somehow, this touch of hers is freely given, without demand--and yes, he knows the difference. This is simple human connection, he _remembers_ \--the grief, long buried, trying to claw out of its grave _weeping_ at the way she'd touched him with such tender care. And now, the offer is real. This simple, human connection could fit if he wanted it to. If he chose. If he let her hold onto his hand, if he let her take it, if he closed his fingers around hers in return. He stares down at it. Quietly, she asks, "What do you want, Richard?"

"I want to go save Kate," he whispers, and Monica's fingers tighten on him.

"No," she says, and when he turns to meet her eyes they're sincerely full of worry, and warning. She shakes her head. She's not smiling anymore. "You don't."

His heart is in his throat, pounding, trying to stop the question he knows he shouldn't let himself ask. "Why not?"

Richie remembers her reluctance from the motel room, his mind clear now not just to recognize the terror of a human being caged in with a rabid creature, but also the kindness she tried to show in spite of it, doing her best--what little she could--to patch the pitiful monster's wounds, and it's the kindness he sees as she falters now. "Richie--I'm a bank teller. I know transactions."

He remembers his studies. _It's a simple exchange, really. A pact with the gods._ And he'd be lying if he didn't harbor some-- _hope_ , let's be honest, because it's the best result his wishful thinking can possibly expect to come away with--of pulling Kate out of that swimming pool and leaving himself in her place, face down reading his own narration. He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. Whatever the price, I'll pay it. I'll do anything it takes."

Monica's look at him becomes nearly heartbroken. "That's what I'm telling you. You...can't. What you are, what you've done...You don't have anything left. There's nothing. In order to sacrifice to get what you seek--you have to have something for the trade. You don't. You have nothing, that you don't already owe here."

Richie can't move, can't speak. So this is judgment. No hatred, no vengeance, no matter how deserved. It's _sorry to inform you, sir_ , delivered in big brown mournful eyes he'd enslaved, trapped into his burden of bankruptcy with him.

He tries to clear his throat, and succeeds eventually. "You're...sure?"

She holds his eyes, searching, urgent, her words low, the irredeemable horror of the pronouncement. "...A mother always knows."

And _he'd_ always known. Always. Monica didn't run screaming from him first chance she got--even too scared to make a move, she had still looked at the monster and _cared_ , which made her the best mommy he ever had (could ever _hope_ to have, poor dumb bastard). And then the best mommy he ever had, who'd looked at him and cared, had picked up that revolver he'd set her up to take, and instead of trying to use it to just escape she delivered her judgment of damnation--because his mother always knew, and Richie could have figured it out, if he'd tried. How to just escape from their old man instead of setting him up to burn alive, and Richie hadn't, and _never once wanted to_.

"Richie." Monica's grab on his hand is painfully tight, and as distractions go, it doesn't even register. "Just stay. Stay here, it only gets so much worse. Trust me. I know--I know how much you wanted to fix this, but you can't. It isn't something you can fix. She's not in pain and there's nothing you can do, you _can't save her_ \--"

He wrenches away, sees and grabs what he needs. He turns, puts the loaded revolver in Monica's hands, and gets to his knees in front of her. "It doesn't matter." He stops, then. One more question. "What happens to you, now--can this release you?"

Monica shakes her head, eyes glistening. "I don't know."

He nods, one last time. "I hope...I _want_ \--that you go free. Somewhere good." His mouth quirks up at her, a half-joke, or an attempt at one anyway. "Beaches and blue agave, or something." He settles back, on his heels, and holds her gaze.

Monica's smile is so watery it's almost non-existent, and she raises the gun. "Don't be afraid, baby," she whispers, and empties all six chambers in his face.


	3. If We Stay (Then I'm Already Possessed)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Gyroscope's [Snakeskin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGS8-Kvzk34).

One bullet hurts like _fuck_. Six is agony the Richter scale never had a magnitude for, logarithmic his ass, and he only knows he's coming out of it when his ears hear his own groan, and _Kate_ \--

" _There_ he is," says Santanico, and Richie slumps back the approximately one inch he'd managed to get up off the stone slab of her floor. He thought it'd felt familiar.

"Oh fuck me," he gripes, and feels her hand close around his jauntily unwithered dick, _fucking hell_ , there is something _really wrong_ with him. He scrambles back in a jolt, and hits a chair leg. "That wasn't a request."

"Hm." She smiles, lazy, sex in every line of her body, scarlet negligee whispering around her black dancing two-piece as she stands, the lush temple of her boudoir around her, as dark and ruddy and entombing as a chest cavity. She leans an elbow on the back of the other chair in the chamber, looking down on him with amusement. "You never did like to ask."

He scrunches his forehead against the heel of his hand, trying to work the migrane lights out from behind his eye sockets. "Yeah, you're here to do anything I want?"

Her laugh now is a sound of careless claws, not even trying. "I did my best for three months. It's not _possible_ to be that vanilla."

"I'm not--"

"Richard? You called me _sweetpea_. At first, I believed it was just you being a tedious _macho_ , like those smug men of your moving pictures you love so much--but oh, you _meant_ it." She shakes her head, sighing. "I waited _forever_ to ease you in, and you didn't even like a little light fangplay."

"I didn't--"

"Say it. I know." Her eyes glitter. "I admit, I am still curious how the hairbrushing would work. You never explained."

He shuts up. She can go on thinking the idea was at least one weird sex-thing he had than just...wanting to know what it was like to brush a woman's hair. Besides, he...did his best to get into the whole...thing, and... _fine_. "Yeah, pardon the hell out of me if I couldn't get up to speed with five hundred years of freaky sex. _Sweetpea_."

Santanico tilts her head. "Is that what you imagine will happen in Hell? Pardon? There is no forgiveness to be found here."

"Oh, really? No forgiveness in Hell? Give me a second while I get my surprised face on."

She looks at him in silence for a few moments. "Is that it? I see no difference from--"

"Oh my god. Okay. Is this--are we done? Was that a bit more judgment for the pot, Richard Gecko: _against all expectations, not a big enough freak in bed_? Can we get on with the you killing me in some agonizing fashion, because I think I prefer that part."

She sits down, crosses her legs. "You can have a seat, you know."

"I don't want a seat. _I want to get to Kate_." Richie can feel her, however this accordian-folded Escher-print bastard of a Rubix hellcube works, she's _clearer_. He doesn't know if that means he's gotten closer in to her, exactly, but if he could just...get somewhere within reach, somehow, and...he has to get _there_. Not here. "So just kill me or something, come on."

"You know you cannot save her--you cannot _protect_ her, in here. So, already you know you cannot rectify your deepest mistake, and at last find redemption for her death..."

He throws his hands in the air. "When I said 'in some agonizing fashion' I did not mean being talked to death by my ex."

Santanico ignores him, and yeah, he thinks he can safely say he's left the professor's "safezone" of "control" behind, anyway. She purses her lips thoughtfully, chin in hand. "Perhaps, then, you wish to continue making so many, many of your monkey-brain apologies to your poor little Kate--but if also you already know there can be no forgiveness..."

Richie goes cold. He does what he does and he doesn't apologize for it...and he _hadn't_. To Kate, when he still had the chance. To tell her. "What are you talking about?"

"Three, by my count." She ticks off her fingers. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Sorry, your life is upside down. Sorry, it's not up to me. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Kate." She arches an eyebrow. "Three, in one evening. A very impressive record for you."

Santanico does sarcasm about as much as Richie does apologies--and besides, okay, he may not be any kind of kinky motherfucker but he sure as shit has _technique_ figured out, so--he lets that go through. Besides, he's too busy being silenced, for a minute. Jesus, had he really...? But he had, he knows he had, the truth of it right there as undeniable as Kate's heartbeat, beckoning him on. And apparently he hadn't even noticed himself doing it.

"You've known her only two evenings. And on the second of them, three attempts to protect her. Your goal at risk, your own _true desire_ , and each time--your path bowing to hers."

Richie folds his arms and looks away.

"You don't find this interesting, Richard?"

"No," he mutters.

" _Was_ it to protect her?"

His mouth tightens, breath stuttering in his chest.

"Didn't you protect _yourself_? Malvado, the grand connoisseur of desire himself, looking straight into Kate's soul. He would sniff it out in an instant, and then he would _see_. Wouldn't he. Richard."

Richie's legs propel him up off the floor all on their own, churning with the need to walk, to just _move_ , anything. He starts stalking around the room, searching for some way out, some solution he knows good and well doesn't exist.

"He would see that...one...moment. When all the pieces in your universe finally fell into their right place, all tumblers in the lock aligned--where they were supposed to be. Needing only to be opened. You could feel it to those clever, clever fingertips. So beautiful. Looking into her eyes, and _belonging_. No longer the ugly stepkid in the attic. And Malvado would see how his very own hand-picked heir had given himself over to it. _Completely_." Santanico has reclined, elegantly, against the back of her chair, observing his non-progress with detached curiosity, a snake with a captive audience and all the time in the world to strike. "All for the price of a few words, and a kiss. Oh, how cheap you gave yourself, for how _small_ a thing. Just a moment--but all your infinite ambition, and all the heights of greatness you seek, could not hide that moment from Malvado peering through Kate's eyes. You. Giving yourself up for _nothing_ , Richard. How could the greatest Lord of the Night, he who possesses all, possesses _completely_ , ever hand his empire of conquest to someone like _that_?"

He's yanking at the handle of the heavy door that would lead him out front, if it would open, which it won't, just in the idea that it might make enough racket to drown her voice out. Astonishingly, it's not working.

"You should have waited for me, Richard. As I waited and worked and planned for you. The value I placed on you. _Lifetimes_. To get you to come to me willingly, and then. She only walks across your path...and you, always lured so easily by the smallest morsel of sweetness. You couldn't stay away. You couldn't even _look_ away. You think I couldn't _smell_ it on you? You think I didn't see it, in the bite? Your mind. Your heart. Your soul. Already unfolding all for that fresh, wholesome, sweet...little...pea. Promising all to her in a kiss..."

He pulls so hard he nearly dislocates his shoulder. The pain shrieks, piercing through him for a second, and it's still not as loud and deep as her indolent words.

"...and she didn't want to have it."

As abruptly as the energy seized Richie's legs, it leaves them. He tries, with his hands against the resolutely shut door, to stay on his feet, but after a few seconds even that doesn't keep him up and he slides down until one knee, and then the other, hits the floor.

"She didn't want you," Santanico continues behind him, so softly. "She didn't want anything you have. You have nothing to offer _for_ her--and you have nothing to offer _her_." There's silence, to let the words of judgment settle down to the bone, where it already lives. "She doesn't want it, Richard."

He closes his eyes. The fucking unhelpful door is at least very solid, as the door of any good six-by-nine should be, and he turns and lets it take the weight of his back, his ass back down on the floor he died on. "Yeah, well," and if he meant for his response to bite back, it gets lost in how many ways it's true. "I guess you'd know."

In the following quiet, behind his eyelids, all he does is listen to the clear, pure pulse that is Kate's heart. Running so much deeper than Santanico's voice ever had, the _call_ of it on him--by doing nothing more than existing. It's torture, and if he had his way, he would never, ever let it go.

"I know she begged you to be set free-- _of you_. And I know that you tried. In fact, as soon as it _was_ up to you, on that second night, you tried to be rid of her."

He opens his eyes just a slit at her, wary. In here, she is queen, and she can't fool him, he learned this game from the cradle. She's honed playing with her food to the very finest of arts. It's in her blood, and Malvado knew it, gloried in it--while Kate had held so little interest for him that he passed her over like a mere novelty trinket. Santanico's smile is all predator as she leans forward--and Richie's still not going to beg.

"To _protect_ her, isn't that right? But oh, by then, brave determined little Kate was _screaming_ at you to make you let her stay...And then she would _see_. She has never needed blood to look into your soul, has she? You couldn't hide it, not from her--even when she was blinding herself with her own sweet light, searching for the good she wouldn't find, she still spoke the truth of you. Broken and selfish and _wrong_. Given up on family, on love. And then she looked close enough. And all her purity of heart, that would love even the unlovable... _ran_ from you. Again. Just as you knew she would, just as she had two times before, when you let her see what was under the surface. And you, always chasing behind. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Kate."

His jaw is clenched so hard he might be breaking something. But he survived months--maybe years--of Santanico's voice in his head. He can do it again.

" _I didn't mean it, your life upside down, it wasn't up to me_...Oh, Richard. No matter what she did, you could never blame her, could you--because you already knew. Your mother already proved it, too well. Nothing you could offer could _ever_ be acceptable, not for sweet, sweet Kate. And still you couldn't stop _caring_ for her, no matter how you tried to strangle it dead, bury it deep even from yourself. Couldn't stop _wanting_."

She licks her lips, a viciously swift flicker at odds with the voluptuous lounging of her body, then smiles. It's not a nice smile.

"Mmm. All the terrible truth someone can finally see when your connection of trust with them is broken. How they see the _monster_. How it forces your hand. Derails your plans. And then she, too, shot down like a dog. You poor pure souls--it's always so all-or-nothing, with you. Tell me, is it even possible, anywhere in your big brain, you could believe you could make her accept your venom, as you did mine, when you couldn't even get her to receive her own brother's?"

Richie thunks his big brain back against the door, but the sparkle of migrane echoes is all he gets before he's back to unadulterated hellish torture.

"No. _You have no right_. And yet, here, you claimed her. _Your_ Kate."

He can hear the rage mounting in her, and maybe, if he's lucky, she'll finally just pounce and tear his body apart.

"What will you call her, Richard? What _do_ you call her?"

In the expectant pause of a trap poised to snap closed, Richie realizes they've come to the audience participation part of the floor show. Except, her question makes no fucking sense. What does he _call_ her? "...What?"

Santanico rises, sinuous fury. "Reina. _Diosa_. What is your _true_ desire for her? Is she 'Princess' to you, too? Will you _make her_ your Queen? Will you force upon her a name of your very own, in your likeness, the crown jewel of your collection? Put her in a cage so that any and all may look upon her, and marvel at your greatness to possess such a treasure?"

Okay, that's beginning to make sense. But now his body's already moving, his whole self, faster than his big brain can catch up just like that time when he...he kissed Kate--except this time he's not opening forward, he's curling back into himself, hunching to protect.

"You are no _abuelito_ , Richard. I know. I had no use for a boy who plays at being Big Daddy, strutting and stomping for the Madonna's indulgent smile. But you--you never knew the meaning of play. _You_ accept nothing less than the real thing. To surpass your father on his path of ambition, to earn your way above him in his very own image--to rise to the place of your maker's maker. The High Lord of the First Realm himself. And for that, your trophy can be nothing less than a Goddess. _The_ Goddess--the first, whom Malvado bound in captivity. And isn't that what she is? In this realm, She is _everything_."

She is _Kate_. He holds it hidden tight, right deep inside his chest. Yes, he'd already known it, read it penned in her hand in the public guestbook ledger--but _she_ reached out that hand and gave it to him, all willing. She _gave_ it to him. _Her name is Kate_.

Santanico has advanced on him slowly across the floor, not a step out of place in this dance of hers, eyes gleaming in the hues of conquerors, blood and gold. "Oh, then, is it even more? Do you understand her? Do you know the _real_ her? Are you the _only one_ who can truly appreciate her?" She smirks down on him. "Katey-kakes to her father, Beyotch to her brother. Preacher's Daughter, _Little Girl_...Little Miss Sunshine, to Seth. Little Pistol and Bo Peep to Sex Machine's lost sheep. And Princess. She is pure little _Princess_ to so many men already. Princess to her lovely little culebra paramour, such sweet, _sweet_ missionary girl in his little _botanica_ of worship. Seeing all _his Katerina's_ true beauty amid the graven idols of _la diosa_ , with his eyes of such adoration. Ah, it's true, I have no such innocent sweetness to beguile men's senses any longer. It was all stolen from me so long, long ago, and yet, do you want to know, in _my_ temple, how many devoted men I sent into the Labyrinth? In the _five centuries_ before you, all so fervent in belief of my love for them and them alone?"

He can only give her a pained squint.

"No," she purrs, vicious. "You don't. Five hundred years, Richard. I _know_ the desires of men. And they never want to know how many have come before them. You want to be special. Be _first_. You want to be The One. But you were just the one who got through. Only, you weren't the _one_ , were you? And this time, there is no Brother, to get you through. You're flying solo in here. All alone."

She darts down, scenting. Her laugh suddenly makes him excruciatingly conscious of Little Richard's own fervent devotion throughout all of this.

"Ohh, but _she_ is still pure, isn't she? So _very_ , very pure. She has never been _taken_."

Fine. If Santanico wants audience participation so bad as to start talking this kind of shit, she's gonna fucking get it. Big Richard pulls himself up straighter, too, and smirks, however bitterly. "Jealous, _reina_?"

Santanico slaps him so hard his face gets smacked by her prison door too, a starburst of pain rebounding both ways and his blood in his mouth. He spits, his blood on her floor. Where it _belongs_ , right?

Her scales flash and fade again, snake eyes still as sharp as two fangs. "Yes, what a pair you two make," she sneers. "Always walking right into the captivity awaiting you, according to your _own_ choices. Demanding it. _Sprinting_ there. Even battering the door down, just to get in. Defying all, to put yourself in another's snare never by anything but your _own free will_. Does that make you truly free, or just really _fucking stupid_?"

Richie never saw it coming, the wall of even deeper--fondness--that he could feel for Kate, inundating, sweeping in through his chest, unstoppable right up into his smile. "Why not both?"

"Both? Both _putting_ yourselves into the very chains that forced you to sacrifice innocents?"

He hisses, smile washed away in the drawback of Kate's own broken grief he can't help himself but feel.

" _I never chose_ \--and yet _she's_ still the innocent blood. Isn't she, Richard. Because that is what she _is_. She can no more help it than you can help being what _you_ are. So then--is that what this is? This innocent blood, the _miracle--_ the prize that you've fixed your eyes on with your singleness of mind? Is she the true chalice, you've desired so deeply with that graven counterfeit in that sad little box of treasures locked away inside _il mio cuore malato_? And will you be _first_ \--the penitent man, passing through the traps and snares, the one who chooses wisely? Will you be the one to take rightful possession of her from the tired and gray old man of faith, and drink salvation from her? Will she heal you? Will she restore you to true life in eternity?"

Santanico's crimson lips break into a grin, a hint of venom-filled fang before her eyes flick back to deep brown and she chuckles, warmly. Invitingly. Richie braces for the kill.

She slides down next to him, companionably cornering him in between the door and the wall. "No, no. It's not the virgin _bite_ you want. Despite all I've told you--and I can assure you, Richard, what's in this virgin's veins isn't just exceptional. It's unique." She eyes him, laughter still prowling in her look. "But no. You never forced her, when it came to the point, did you? Never _could_. No, not for _you_ , to do anything so ugly and cruel to the precious, untouched little girl, her beautiful soul with all her goodness and all her sweetness and all her _light_. You would _cherish_ , isn't that right?"

He doesn't even realize his hand has gone to his chest, fingers twitching to hold, hidden tight deep inside, until Santanico's eyes follow the movement, delighted. He's never been that great of a liar, either, not really.

"Mmmm." Her eyes continue down wickedly, south of his belt, and she leans, lifts her elegant stalking hand...and she runs her fingers up over his lips. There's nowhere to go, her touch crawling along the nerves inside his skin, as she says, "Lovely little Kyle Winthrop's tongue into her innocent mouth, at the back of a church." She taps, and then her fingers slip down, at his stomach. "Standing on sacred ground, and Carlito's bullets into her innocent belly..." She digs her perfect night-black nails in. "...and finally into the innocence of her very blood, Amaru's own soul." She soothes, caressing. "Do you know, how she got inside her?"

He freezes. He doesn't _breathe_. He can't look away from her, from any number of awful possibilities, and Santanico's enjoyment of his dread.

"Not through here," and she gives one last pass to his abdomen, before gently latching on his hand, prying it away from its protective clutch at his chest. She traces the lifeline on his palm. "Through _here_. Amancio Malvado, Amaru's greatest slave who rose up to make himself High Lord Priest of the Night--standing in the throneroom at the very heart of his power, presiding with his blessing over your joined hands...and a few drops of blood to shed, to break Kate open...for _you_." She lets his hand fall. "She doesn't have much luck with honeymoons and you boys, does she? Oh, but _you_. Malvado's rightful heir, shedding everything to become the First Lord in all the First Realm. Lord of the Realm of Light. Cost of being the boss, Richard."

Richie's breath rushes through him, frantic. I take it back. _I take it back_ , but there's no pardon in Hell, no penitence, no _sorry, Kate, I'm so, so sorry. Forgive me_. "I don't want it," he chokes, instead, it's so paltry in his mouth he can't even believe it.

"You don't _want_ it? You sacrificed _everything else_ \--including Kate--to get it. And you _knew_. However far it may take you, Malvado's path, Ray Gecko's path, can only end in ashes--as we their children attest, Richard. Who can know it better--and yet you took it, because you knew it's all you could ever hope to be worth. You claimed it. You _earned_ it. It's yours."

But..."No--the Lords..."

"Got greedy. Yes. They thought they could take it for themselves, but prophecies are like rituals, like thrones and like power. They all have rules, conditions that must be fulfilled. The Lords broke them, and paid the price." She looks at him, perplexed. "You know this, Richard. You've _felt_ it, since Malvado passed it to you. The compulsion. The demand for tribute, inside you. You haven't just been feeding, you've been consuming souls to feed _it_. Hoarding trinkets, treasures. Working away at _collecting_ like some minimum-wage job. Malvado's was the Temple of the _Eternal Feast_ , his enthusiasms beyond voracious. How long did you think you could keep it in check?" Her frown deepens. "You gave up everything else. You have nothing, you _are_ nothing, other than Malvado's legacy. It is yours. Just as it was written. Isn't that what allowed you to get in, here? Did you not claim possession of Kate from him, too? Is she not _yours_?"

He's shaking his head. " _No_ , I...Seth--"

"You cut him loose, too. You know you did." She tugs with a point to make on the lapels of his suit. "You've been working with him for months--trying to be _back_. To be his brother again. _Seth and Richie_ once more--but you can't, can you? It's not there anymore. _Nada_. Your brother can work with anyone, even the enemy who shot you in the back, even the monster who shot _Kate_ in the back. Even me. Even _you_. But you're barely even 'blood' anymore, my sweet culebra princeling."

He swallows, hollow. For months. _Months_. Kate gone, and he'd never see her again--Seth gone, and standing right in front of him, day after day. Trying and trying and trying and failing, just like that foolish, desperate IV-drip of _never found her body_ making a mockery of hope, day after day after day stretching out into an undying life. _His fault_ , in so, so many ways, he hadn't even tried when he still could. Why hadn't he _tried_? And now--"She... _she_ called me in here. To come get her."

Santanico nods. "Ah, her message crying out into the ether...to lovely little _Kyle_." Her eyes narrow, merciless. "Yes. You did make that connection, didn't you. After all my hard work on you in that dump of a motel, to show you--to open your eyes so you could _see_ , clearly at last, so you could find _me_. And the first thing you do? You hunt _her_ down. _See_ her. _Connect_...with _her_."

Her name, her handwriting in the ledger. Warm-sharp sun lotion scent in his nose, her things on the bathroom counter, the feel of simple cotton bra cups, holding them up, against his chest, his heart where hers should be. The _pool_. He won't beg. He _won't_ beg, and Santanico continues, twisting the knife.

"There you were, playing those tricks on her. Her smiles. Her trust. Opening up to you just like a little sunflower, so, _so_ easily. All of it coming so, so easily, for once--until you got sloppy, and you fucked it up. Surely you must have suspected--it was _my_ work that made it easy. _I_ was the one who made it even _possible_."

He drops his head in his hands, for one long, long, long moment.

No. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. _Richie_...She'd _said his name_. He can't say that, won't say that, for Santanico to tear apart too, but Kate looked right at him, right there, and she said his name--and _he's all she's got_. So he's not begging...but he's asking.

"Just let me go. Just let me get to her."

Santanico's perma-pout mouth goes slack for a second...and then she's _laughing_ , like he's the funniest, sorriest fucking thing she's ever seen. "Richard-- _I'm_ not keeping you here. You are."

Jesus _Christ_. "Then how do I...let go, or get out or whatever?"

Her eyes drop to his chest again. To his _heart_.

No. _No_. Her name is Kate, he didn't take it. He didn't _take_ it. He didn't trick her into it. She offered it to him, without reserve, and he never wanted to call her anything else, _he's allowed_. Her name is Kate. And she said his. _Richie_. He's _allowed_.

His hand has slammed back over it so hard he actually thumps back into the unyielding door with a crash. He is _not letting it go_. He feels it squeeze, squeeze the _life_ from him, gripping him so tight, coiling and coiling...and _coiling_...

Richie can barely drag in a breath for hope, the sudden realization. "The _Sasak Ukib_. It's still in me? Still in here--" But he doesn't need Santanico's nod, he can feel it, constricting, burrowing in deeper at the disturbance, the _threat_.

"You conquered Malvado's Labyrinth, Richard. That made you its lord, and first in line for succession. Crown prince assumptive to his empire. _You_ broke the seal, and returned my blood to me--but you consumed the leash, the rarest of rare sacred serpents Malvado possessed. Nothing less would do, for the consumation and imprisonment of his most prized possession. You became the greatest progeny of his greatest mistress, but more than that, you'd already risen up to make yourself a being potentially the equal to any of the Lords. On your _very first night_ of becoming culebra. The only reason they didn't slay you outright, the very moment Malvado and I were no longer in their way, had to be to keep you on their leash in case the prophecy turned out to be true after all."

He's feeling for it, under his ribs, trying to get a bead on it. It's not gonna come up on its own, through his throat like when Santanico's blood inside it could be summoned to her. Human strength couldn't do it, but culebra strength, applied right, can tear into flesh with bare hands. Up under through the diaphragm, behind the sternum, inside the rib cage. He'll heal fast so he'll have to be faster, but he can get in. He can get it out of him.

He's already unbuttoned, tearing his undershirt from the earlier bullethole, but he's going to have to start from scratch with his skin--

Santanico grabs his wrists. "You _fool_. What are you doing? I told you, this is your greatness, this is everything there is. You aren't the _second half of a sentence_ anymore, _this_ is the sentence. The only sentence Richard Gecko can be. That you paid _everything_ to be. You understood what was required. You _chose_ it. To be made in the image of Amancio Malvado demands no less--without that, there is only the ashes left. No Kate. No Seth. No me. This _hara-kiri mierda_ , it won't work--it just leaves you _dead_. Worse than dead. _Nothing_."

He shakes her hands off, but she's right, it won't work. He gets up onto his knees--don't want the legs giving out and sending things tits-up, keep the abdomen and thorax not bunched up, better access--because that's the rule for ritual suicide.

" _Richard_. This is the desire, _your_ desire, that drove you through the Labyrinth itself. This is what you _won_. It wasn't your desire for me--it was your desire to be great enough. To prove you have everything to _offer_ me, and in this I am here, I am _yours_. All the value _I_ put on you, everything you became and achieved, everything you won for me, it's real, it's no trick. You earned this. Here is where I chose you. Here you are wanted, Richard."

It's the closest she's ever been able to make herself get, and for a second it's actually shocking. All those ploys, smoke and mirrors and substitutions, trigger-phrases, _set me free_ , to get at those three little words. Panting after her, wrecking himself for her like a half-starved dog--and those few words really is all it would have taken. He'd have been hers forever, and so gratefully he almost can't stand it. He shakes his head, really looking at her for the first time since he got in here...Maybe, ever. "How did you know, never to say the words?" he asks. "Did it work better?--Or worse, maybe. When your other Labyrinth rats realized it was a lie."

Her expression closes, and just like that he can't blame her for it. Such an intimate thing to tell someone.

_I want you_.

"Maybe you just couldn't bring yourself to say it," he muses, no knife-edge to it. Not here, not with the beat of Kate's heart murmuring all around him, however he got in here, whether he deserves to be there or not. "You know, Malvado told me I couldn't ever give you what you truly want." He smiles, almost. "Seemed to think I didn't already know it."

Their equal share in never being each other's true desire only seems to make her impatient. "I did tell you, I couldn't give you what you need. Not until..."

"--Not until you finished stringing me along to get at Malvado. Or how about, until you could run off into the sunset with a real human girlfriend instead?"

"Didn't _you_ do both first?" she spits out, and he doesn't argue the point. No knife-edge needed, when he could bring her lost love to the fight. "Even if you do get to your precious Kate, even if you _do_ get out, and survive this--they are so fragile, Richard. You only blink, and you'll lose her, forever."

As if he didn't already know that, too. He can only meet her eyes, the hollow resignation of it going all the way through, unconditional. "What wouldn't you do," he says, quietly. "To see her, truly, just one more time."

She opens her mouth, and then closes it again, breathing hard. She looks down at his hand, set below the ridge of his ribs. "If there is a path, this is the only power you have--to _take_ \--to her," she states, flatly. "To destroy it destroys all you are left."

He just looks at her, and she nods, moving back a little, out of his way. It's hardly going to be the precision work she showed him with Monica, and _Seth's_ the one who brings emergency backup hand drills, ever ready for Richie to let him down. He looks at Santanico. "Wouldn't happen to have any shivs hidden away in here I can use?"

"No." She shakes her head.

Figures. He focuses, frowning. His eyes slide closed to concentrate, and Kate's heartbeat is instantly there with him in the darkness. Kate, two bullets like a pair of metal fangs gouging their rough path through her body, faster than Richie could ever move, and Malvado's two swanky surgery-sharp talons would really come in useful right about now--but it's just Richie back to his own hand, again.

Brother, I hope you're laughing.

He claws two fingertips in. He can make them clever enough. He has to.

It's muscle and it's regenerating, fleshy resistance, and he listens to nothing, _nothing_ , except the life pulsing through _Kate's_ chest-- _still_ pulsing, pulsing again, _alive_ \--and punches the blade of his hand through the weak point between the two punctures he's made, a grunt and every ounce of strength he has _quick as Nick_ and--he's got it, tough, scaley handle of writhing sheer power, constricting him in, deeper. He's never grabbed hold of anything so hard in his life.

Brother. I hope you held onto me.

Richie drags it out of him, inch by slippery, squirming, fighting inch, and it might bring his heart with it anyway it's winding in so hard, fangs striking, sinking in deep, digging and scoring it open, tearing, Santanico's right, he's not going to survive this. He's woozy, lifeblood draining back out onto her floor through the hole in his chest, and he's got nothing left, not even one good heave and he gives it any way and he falls back against her door one last time, blurry eyes open enough to see the damn thing in his hand, the slithering length of it already lunging back up his arm to him, and with the last limp effort he has to give, he shoves it up towards her.

"Here. Kisa."

Her hands, swift sure hunter's hands, snatch it up easily and she wrings the head of her prison right off, and his legs sprawl and he slips down and his sight fades to black and ash and nothing as he watches it there, burning away into nothing with him at her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC...soon as I feel like torturing Richie some moar 8)


End file.
